Universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) packet network architecture includes as major architectural elements user equipment (UE), a UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) and a core network (CN). The user equipment (UE) is interfaced to a universal mobile telecommunications system terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) over a radio (Uu) interface, while the universal mobile telecommunications system terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) interfaces to the core network (CN) over a (wired) Iu interface.
3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) specifies a universal mobile telecommunications system terrestrial radio access (UTRA) and more specifically the wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) high speed uplink packet access (HSUPA), which is an enhanced uplink feature used in the frequency division duplex (FDD) mode.
In future 3GPP releases, multi-carrier high-speed uplink packet access (MC-HSUPA) operation will be implemented enabling higher uplink throughput for the user equipment (UE). The mobile processing unit load for the user plane (U-plane) activities will be significantly increased due to the introduction of the multi-carrier high-speed uplink packet access (MC-HSUPA) feature.